Large-scale international project will collect data on endangered insect populations 

The ANTENNA project, with the participation of Danish, Spanish, Greek, Irish, Dutch and German partners, will come to the rescue of endangered populations of pollinating insects. With new monitoring methods, the project partners will make it easier to collect data on the insects in order to gain knowledge about which species populations are particularly under pressure and why. Innovation Fund Denmark is investing 2.25 million DKK in the project's Danish partners.

Insects are in sharp decline worldwide, and that is bad news for the human food supply, which is largely dependent on insects' ability to pollinate plants. But the development is complex and contains a multitude of unanswered questions.

According to assistant professor at the Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics at Aarhus University, Quentin Geissmann, it is therefore crucial to find the answers to these questions in order to reverse the decline of insects.

- Although insect numbers are generally declining, some species are doing better than others, and we don't have a full overview of which ones are hardest hit. We also don't have a full overview of how changes in climate and environment are leading to the decline in insect numbers. That's why it's important to collect large amounts of data, he says.

A large-scale European project has just been launched to collect this data. The project, called ANTENNA, will streamline, standardize and scale the way in which pollinators are monitored. Quentin Geissmann, who is Aarhus University's project manager at ANTENNA, believes that research in the field has so far suffered from outdated and cumbersome methods. Many of the traps used to collect insects in the past killed the insects and also required frequent inspection and emptying. In ANTENNA, they have therefore developed a 3D-printed flower with an associated camera trap that is automatically triggered when the insect lands on the flower.

- This setup is easier to scale up at a European level because with a purely mechanical model you don't have to take local conditions into account and can standardize and automate monitoring across national borders, says Quentin Geissmann.

In addition to the camera traps, the project partners also use various types of advanced technology to collect data on the pollinators. At Aarhus University, they have the opportunity to run large quantities of collected insects through scanners, which can provide a good estimate of the number of pollinators in a given habitat. To get a more detailed picture of exactly which species are involved, they send the same insects to the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands, which specializes in DNA analysis of insects. In this way, the project partners exploit each other's strengths in the collaboration.

According to Quentin Geissmann, projects like ANTENNA play an important role in preventing the worst possible outcomes of the collapse of insect populations.

- Without pollinators, flowering plants and their fruits will die out. Plants that reproduce in other ways will thrive, and we will experience a huge environmental upheaval that we as a society are not equipped to handle. To maintain the stability of our ecosystem and come to the rescue of pollinators, we need to learn more about the current state of insect populations.

ANTENNA was created as a result of a call under the EU initiative Biodiversa, which aims to promote biodiversity in Europe. At Aarhus University, Quentin Geissmann, who is a tenure-track assistant professor, is working on the ANTENNA project together with his postdoc Helena Russello. In addition to Aarhus University, which is supported by Innovation Fund Denmark, universities and research institutions from Ireland, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands and Germany are also involved.

Facts

• Innovation Fund's investment: DKK 2,250,000.
• Total budget: DKK 11,911,553.
• Duration: 2023 - 2027
• Program: International Collaborations – Biodiversa
• Official title: ANTENNA – mAking TEchnology work for monitoring pollinators

About the partners

Trinity College Dublin, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, University of the Aegean, The Spanish National Research Council, Aarhus University, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research